As a follow up to my previous diary on the War on Opioids, I wanted to share this article penned by a pharmacist and submitted to the National Pain Report:
http://nationalpainreport.com/...
The author, Steve Ariens, tells the story of a Florida couple with a four year old just released from the hospital following surgery to remove a cancerous kidney, who had to go to three different pharmacies before they were able to fill their child's pain medicine prescription. Steve provides a link in his story; I am providing one here, too, just because it illustrates so hideously how the ratcheting up of drug policies are doing a great deal of harm. http://m.wesh.com/...
Steve makes other very good points, and his story is definitely worth reading.
I don't know if the comment I submitted to Steve's story will be published by the NPR; they often aren't. Just to be sure I keep banging the drum on this important issue and the facts surrounding it, I'm posting it here as well. Thanks to those who take the time; please know how much I appreciated the support in response to my previous (and very first!) diary. I truly feel we need to find a way to band together and do what we can to point out the devastation that will surely be left in the wake of this, the newest Prohibition
I hope you can take the time to read Steve's story. These are the points I wanted to make in response:
Thanks for the post, Steve. I've said this before, but it bears repeating that the number of people that die from overdose to prescription drugs - this, according to the CDC - is just over 16,000 a year. Too many, of course, but compared to other causes, like those you mentioned, as well as automobile accidents and gun - related deaths, this is by far the smallest cause of death in America. So we have to ask, why this big police state push? I've witnessed an 80-year woman being reduced to tears trying to fill a prescription for pain medication because of all the hoops pharmacists are now required to make people jump through. It occurs to me, the more and more I look into this, that the weakest and most unlikely sector of the population is being targeted. I mean, imagine if the very real concern over the spike in deaths by shootings - expected to reach 33,000 by year's end - were to be addressed? There would be a huge pushback, such that the nation's 4,500 ATF would be wholly unequipped to handle.
In support of the 2014 National Drug Control Strategy (Strategy), the President requested $25.4 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 to reduce drug use and its consequences in the United States. This represents an increase of $0.2 billion (0.6%) over the enacted FY 2014 level of $25.2 billion. Another consequence of illegal drug use, the Bureau of Prisons ($3,362.2 million), the U.S. Marshals Service ($543.0 million), and the Federal Judiciary ($594.6 million) conduct activities associated with the incarceration and/or monitoring of drug‐related offender. The least amount of money is designed for addiction treatment, most of which goes to "screening." See the White House Budget, National Drug Control Budget:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/...
The ATF - which we know as the policing/regulatory agency for Guns, Alcohol and Tobacco, but which is also responsible for monitoring bombs and other explosives, arson, as well as trafficking of all of the above, employs less than 5,000 agents and has an annual budget of around $1.2 billion. https://edit.justice.gov/...
Still not ready to declare the War on Drugs as lost, and instead focus more resources toward rehabilitation and recovery than imprisonment, it seems we are now to double down and persecute those whose dignity and quality of live has been restored to them by the very drugs now being withheld - drugs designed for the sole purpose of combating the disability, and all that comes with it, resulting from a host of injuries and medical conditions that leave their sufferers in a state of constant pain.
Well done.
Sadly, the many compassionate doctors who resent this intrusion into their ability to treat their patients are threatened with anti-trust laws when attempting to band together and advocate on behalf of their patients. The pain advocacy groups of the past that I used to follow have been disbanded, their websites closed down. We are on our own, folks.
I personally believe the targets of this latest push are going to prove to be a bit more difficult to put down than expected. We are, after all, the people who have worked diligently over decades - two and three jobs, if necessary - to support our families. We have endured hardship before. Perhaps our most driving force, however, is to see that the world inherited by our children and grandchildren is better for our efforts. Our bodies may be weakened, but our will is strong, and we will not go gently. Keep denying, or making it difficult to obtain, pain medication for children with cancer (for example), and see if we don't use our last breath to sound an almighty roar that the whole world will hear!